All three of my aunts put their cards down and swiveled in their chairs to face me. There were few things they loved more than people coming to them for advice. It helped that they were really good at it. “It’s about Cotillion,” I said, and Aunts Martha and May exchanged a look, while Aunt Jewel exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“That Cotillion,” Aunt Martha spat out. “I suwannee.” That was her way of saying “I swear.” Aunt Martha belonged to that generation of ladies who thought any type of swearing—not just saying the bad words—was not the thing to do.

“You don’t like Cotillion?” I asked, surprised. All of them had done it, and so had my grandmother, my mom, my sister . . .

Besides, The Aunts lived for tradition and propriety. Cotillion should be one of their favorite things ever.

“We did,” Aunt Jewel said, stubbing out her cigarette as she stood. Ladies never smoked unless they were sitting, after all. “Until that woman took it over.”

More grumbling. I scooted forward on the edge of my stool. “Saylor Stark?”

Aunt Jewel rolled her eyes. “Such a silly name.”

“Before she came, Cotillion was held in the spring. Which is when it’s meant to be held,” Aunt Martha said, laying her hands in her lap. “Girls are supposed to come out in the spring; everyone knows that. That’s why it used to be called the Chrysalis Ball.”

“And now it’s what? The Mistletoe Ball?” Aunt May asked. She gave a derisive sniff. “That doesn’t even make sense. Unless she has y’all running around kissing people.”

“She would,” Aunt Jewel muttered, plucking a piece of lint from the pie emblazoned across her chest.

“Who ran it before?” I asked.

“Cathy Foster,” Aunt Jewel answered promptly. “And she did a lovely job of it, too. I never understood why she handed it over to a stranger.”

“I never understood why Saylor Stark was so bound and determined to be in charge of Cotillion, anyway,” Aunt Martha said. “Apparently, she’d run one back in her hometown in Virginia.”

Another round of frowns and clucking. “The whole thing was odd,” Aunt May mused, leaning back in her chair. “Cathy loved running Cotillion, and as far as I knew, she planned on passing it on to her daughter. Then Saylor Stark showed up, had one lunch with her, and suddenly, she was in charge.”

“Same with the Pine Grove Betterment Society,” Aunt Martha reminded her. “I thought Suzanne Perry was going to run that until the end of time. But it was the same thing. Saylor Stark marches her behind over to Suzanne’s house with a rum cake, and suddenly she’s in charge of the PGBS, too.”